You know what work is –if you’re old enough to read this you know what work is, although you may not do it. --Phillip Levine, poet
When I was in grade school, I lived on a farm near Sterling, Colorado, and we were mired in a work until one day about 1953 when our load was miraculously lightened. My dad announced we would no longer grow sugar beets. To say we were heartbroken is to take verbal irony to the extreme. We were besides ourselves with joy. We all loathed the work associated with beets. We knew Daddy would find a way for the family to survive mainly from raising and selling livestock, wheat, corn, pinto beans and alfalfa.
My last year on the farm was 1955 when I turned 15 and was the last kid (of 14) standing. Everyone had moved on with their lives. It was the best of times and the worst of times. It was the best because I practically had to work by myself – driving tractors, stacking hay, fixing fence, feeding livestock, hoeing crops, irrigating, milking cows and doing whatever little thing popped up in Dad’s mind, and I proved I could do it. It was the worst because I practically had to work by myself - driving tractors, stacking hay, fixing fence, feeding livestock, hoeing crops, irrigating, milking cows and doing whatever little thing popped up in Dad’s mind. Of course, he worked, but his feet were killing him from years in irrigating boots, and I generally had to be da man. I, of course, was not cut out to be top gun, but I survived. Life was simpler then.
Then, to save his health - and me - my Dad, in February of 1956, at the age of 60, sold all his equipment and the farm, and he, my mother and I moved to town to 118 Park St. in Sterling. The farm consisted of 120 acres of irrigated land, 100 acres of pasture and 100 acres of prime dry land, all in first class condition. This land was augmented by a big house with five bedrooms, a basement, two porches, a small parlor, a big family room, a nice kitchen and one lousy bathroom and a shower in the basement. We also had a huge first-class barn and garages, a large chicken house, three or four granaries and another work house we called the separator house because we separated the milk from the cream there. In the back area, we had a second small house with two gigantic rooms where my sister and her husband and two small children had lived. We also had a gigantic yard and a grove of trees, all in pretty first-class condition. The selling price for this gem? Get ready for this - $29,500 – or about $110 an acre, the price of a moderate new car today. My mom and dad had to survive on this, a small pension, any little jobs my dad procured and their children’s largesse until he died in 1973 and she in 1983. Life was no bowl of cherries.
Not to be forgotten, however, were the good times. That’s where I learned to play and enjoy football, baseball and basketball. That’s where my brother Dick and I used to go fishing in a neighbor’s lake, Hole’s Hole – for catfish – successfully. That’s where the neighbor families and kids would come over nights, especially during the summer, and play games – like kick the can - outside until it was beyond dark, while the folks played cards and kibitzed inside.
That’s where my Dad and I - and whatever brothers or Mom tagged along – went evenings to Pioneer Park to watch first-class fast-pitch softball. There were usually three games an evening for over guys over 17, not kids. That was where, usually on Saturdays, my dad would take Dick and me to town . He would play cards at the Knights of Columbus and we would go to the movies. It was 9 cents at the American Theatre and about 12 at the ritzier Fox. Usually, they showed a double feature, a newsreel and a cartoon.
That’s where my hero, my brother Bob, seven years older than I, whom I thought was probably the smartest, handsomest, most athletic and nicest guy in the world, changed my life. He was always easy going and patient with me, teaching me to ride a bike, drive and be myself. He was God.
That’s also where we ice skated on nearby ponds, swam in Pawnee creek, rode horses, hunted for rabbits and pheasant, built fires for marshallow roasts and hot cocoa and made sugary fudge from Hershey’s chocolate and let it freeze outside in the winter, and played endless board games and card games like pinochle, pitch, canasta and a German game called Duroch.
From about ages 9-12, I had to share a bed and a room with my brother Dick. We would tell stories, play guessing games and play scratch back, and he treated me like a real person. When he and I hoed in the fields, we would spend endless hours quizzing each other and having running calls of baseball games. If there were boys around his own age, almost 3 years older than me, he did not recognize my existence. The jerk.
The times we spent in front of a radio were golden. I listened to everything - , soap operas like “Lorenzo Jones and His Wife Belle,” “Pepper Young’s Family,” and “Stella Dallas”; comedies like the “Bob Hope Show,” “The Jack Benny Show” and “Fibber McGee and Molly”; adventure shows like “The Lone Ranger,” “Sky King” and “Superman,” and dramatic shows like “Big Town,” and “The Shadow.” And best of all I listened to Notre Dame football games on Saturday on Mutual Radio.
Some of our best times came when my married sisters and there numerous broods would visit, especially at Thanksgiving and Christmas. All of us never got together at once because there was not enough room. But whoever was there always had a good time.
Did I think life then was tough? You kidding? I loved it.
Don Lechman is a former reporter, critic and editor for The Daily Breeze. He teaches writing at Harbor College in Wilmington.
